It has been more than six months of grim viewing for Demba Ba, but the
Newcastle forward can now look forward to a DVD rerun with a rather happier
ending after Saturday's 2-1 win over Tottenham.

Just the job: Demba Ba scores for Newcastle against SpursPhoto: ACTION IMAGES

By Jason Mellor, at the Sports Direct Arena

11:00PM BST 19 Aug 2012

The Senegal international has put himself in the uncomfortable position of reviewing past games in an effort to identify where he had been going wrong. It proved to be a valuable exercise in self-help, one that culminated with a single, telling swing of the boot to break Tottenham Hotspur's resistance early in the second half.

“After games, I’ve spent a lot of time watching them over again, just to analyse things, trying to see what I had to do to change the bad stuff,” he said after scoring for the first time since February with a fine effort curled into the corner of the net from 15 yards.

Ba’s 17 goals last season were packed into a 4½-month burst from late September. He added: “A lot of things were going on last season, I was playing out wide for much of the time and while I wasn’t frustrated at not scoring, I didn’t get enough of the ball. I was coming too deep and wasn’t there to take the chances.”

His tally might have been doubled but for the swift intervention of Hatem Ben Arfa, who quickly claimed the ball after being upended in the area by substitute Rafael van der Vaart to concede the decisive late penalty. The Frenchman confidently sent Brad Friedel the wrong way to give the hosts a lead they were not to relinquish a second time.

“Hatem just picked the ball up after he was fouled,” Ba added. “I didn’t know he was going to take the penalty and, to be honest, I thought I’d be taking it, but this time he was faster than me to it.

“I’ll take the next one we get, but I’ll have to make sure I’m a little faster on my feet in getting to the ball.”

Having for the past month observed Ramadan, which ended yesterday, Ba, a devout Muslim, now no longer has to fast during daylight hours. “Fasting can make it difficult in terms of your energy levels, but only if you do it without a reason. When you have a strong belief like I do, then it’s easy. I have faith and that helps me.”

Perhaps the only downside for the hosts was the conduct of Alan Pardew, who will discover in the next 24 hours if he is to face a potential fine and touchline ban after the Football Association study referee Martin Atkinson’s report today.

The Newcastle United manager spectacularly contradicted his programme notes espousing the Olympian spirit of fair play by sealing his banishment to the stands for shoving the assistant referee in a petulant protest over a second-half throw-in.

Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager, received a one-match touchline ban and was fined £8,000 for a similar altercation with Atkinson, who was then the fourth official during a game at Sunderland two years ago.

“I’ve apologised and I’m embarrassed, because I was 100 per cent in the wrong,” said Pardew, whose long-term transfer target, the PSV Eindhoven defender Erik Pieters, watched Saturday’s game in the stands.

Despite an equaliser from Jermain Defoe, Tottenham’s best player, who poked home the rebound after Tim Krul saved his initial header, for manager Andre Villas-Boas, it all started as it had ended, with defeat against a team in stripes.

A single-goal reversal at West Bromwich Albion in March spelled the end of nine tortuous months in charge at Chelsea.

While he will not suffer a similar fate just yet, a failure to earn a share of the spoils from a game in which Spurs struck the woodwork through Defoe and Gareth Bale underlined the work to be done in what remains of the transfer window.

“It was a decent performance, but with the result it’s a bitter-sweet situation,” said Villas-Boas, who has lost eight of his 28 games as a Premier League manager, winning fewer than half of those.

He added: “It’s good to be back, and let’s take the positives rather than dwell too much on the negatives from this match.” One negative which is bound to rear up in the coming days is the future of playmaker Luka Modric, who appears certain to leave White Hart Lane, with Real Madrid his most likely destination.

The Croatian’s departure would leave a significant hole in Villas-Boas’s line-up, although the manager is confident of making additions before the end of this month’s transfer window.

A new striker to assist Defoe must be the priority, and hope remains that Emmanuel Adebayor’s wage demands can be satisfied and the Togolese brought to north London on a permanent deal.

“We continue to look at strengthening our squad,” Villas-Boas said. “We’re trying to conclude deals, even though things have been stalled for quite some time for much of the European market.

“It’s not through lack of trying that we’ve not signed more players and we’ll continue our efforts throughout this week. We know we need to do better the market in our search for a striker.”